Shigeru Miyamoto Chimes in on Oculus Rift

Last week’s E3 had more than just industry giants clashing with gameplay trailers and hardware demonstrations to impress customers—it was also a chance for many industry leaders to check out the competition and try out some new stuff themselves.  Which was exactly what gaming godfather Shigeru Miyamoto was doing when he was caught playing with the now Facebook-owned Oculus Rift during the event.  At the time, he didn’t have much to say on the VR experience, but now that he had a week to mull it over he finally has something to share about the system.  As he explained to Time Magazine in an interview:

“As game designers, we at Nintendo are interested in VR technology and what it can do, but at the same time what we’re trying to do with Wii U is to create games for everyone in the living room. We want the Wii U to be a game system that brings video gamers into the living room.  When you think about what virtual reality is, which is one person putting on some goggles and playing by themselves kind of over in a corner, or maybe they go into a separate room and they spend all their time alone playing in that virtual reality, that’s in direct contrast with what it is we’re trying to achieve with Wii U. And so I have a little bit of uneasiness with whether or not that’s the best way for people to play.”

Nintendo has made a rather large deal in the past on how it wants the Wii U to be both a family system and a social system: something you do with others than just by yourself.  Most of their games have extensive local multiplayer support to really hammer that purpose home in addition to online functionality.  While an Oculus-Rift style headset would probably be the best way to avoid people looking over your shoulder when you’re using a Wii U Pad for their 5-person games, it’s true that it’s hard to engage with others when you’ve got 5 pounds of plastic hanging off your face.

Mind you, he didn’t think it was a bad idea—not at all.  Just not a good idea for the standard stay-at-home gaming experience...

“There’s interest in the technology, but we think it might be better suited to some sort of attraction style of entertainment, say something at a video game arcade or things like that, rather than something that one person plays alone.”

So now we know.  Don’t expect any Oculus Rift compatible games to come out on the Wii U anytime soon (not that it was ever designed for console use), which is their loss, I guess.  Either way, I think we can agree: I need to give Nintendo news a break.